Sunday, September 17, 2006

CBC archives

Sorry, I haven't been keeping up with this site of late. been to busy with oter things. I thought this site might be of interest -the CBC archives. It has a lot of archives from WWII, particularly Italy. Mathew Halton is one of the more famous radio correspondent. Does the BBC have an archive page?

9 Comments:

Ronmac - good to hear from you again - yes the BBc does have an archive page which can be reached via the BBc.co.uk./history Matthew Holtam of course was - as the term is to-day - embedded - with the first Div in Italy and then he swanned around with both the 1st and the 5th Armoured. He came over to our regiment one day and interviewed some of the lads but I don't know what came of it.He was a good reporter who " told it like it was" !

One of the Mathew Halton clips is a 10 minute piece on Dec 6th 1943, describing an attack by the Hasty Pee's across the Moro River. This was the start of a month long battle for Ortona. As you know, my dad was part of the Hasty Pee's and was likely right there on the spot. As a matter of fact, he told me he was nearly killed at the Moro -they missed him. It is intersting to listen to that clip with all the shelling in the background and knowing that maybe one of those shells nearly had his number on it -in which case I wouldn't be here today.

Ronmac - The Moro was a tough one as the Hasty Pee's and the Canadian regt took a real pasting there - just down the road was Casa Beradi where Captain Triquot of the Vandoo's won his V.C. this cleared the way for the Seaforths and Loyal Eddies to get mauled at Ortona proper - in the middle of Christmas as well ! There were more than 3000 casualties during that month. Your Father was one of the lucky ones !

His luck ran out on Feb 2 44 when he was wounded just a few km north of Ortona -at least that is what appears on his service record.

The war diaries for the Hassty Pees for Feb 2: "2-Feb-44(Wednesday) Up front Weather:Fair. Contact patrols had no stirring events to report. Three "A" company members were badly burned by phosphorous shells during the day's heavy shelling. Col. Kennedy visited the forward positions, encouraging the boys,trying to bolster morale.'

A couple of days earlier the Hasty Pee's were involved in a couple of ill-fated attacks against the para positions. They attacks didn't have much chance of achieving any kind of success, but were intnded to keep the Paras down in what was an inactive front. Monty by this time had decided to abandon the offensive.

Ronmac- Your Father - like many of us - fell foul of the German 1st para div who at that time were backing over towards Cassino - must have been just north of Campobasso area and after the first Battle for Cassino. Incidently Monty at that time was long gone back to the U.K. and Oliver Leese was then in charge of 8th Army. He took us sll the way to the Gothic Line and afterwards went off to Burma and Dick McCreery then took over for the rest of the campaign.

I feel it is important to maintain Official Archives, particularly the contemporaneous records of what actually happened. Telling it "like it was" (as Tom Canning states here), whether it be good, bad or indifferent, was the mark of a good reporter.

Peter - th CBC linkage is a good reminder of how noisy the artillery was - at all times - we often wished they wouild fire quiet shells - asking too much I suppose ! It would appear that like many others - the CBC reporters all disappeared from Italy after Rome as there is not much reported on the advance on Florence nor the Gothic Line - nor the winter line of the Senio, but they allow Smokey to tell the tale of the action where he won his VC on the Savio in October '44 - we truly were forgotten !